Cricket bat drilled into by US customs officials

It is every cricketer's worst nightmare - handing over your bat to customs officials for inspection and having it returned filled with holes.

When Black Caps all-rounder Jimmy Neesham posted a photo on Twitter of what seemed to be his bat with four holes drilled into it after an apparent drug test, cricket commentators around the world lamented on his behalf.

Imagine if your cricket gear went through America and they drilled h oles in your bat to look for drugs... pic.twitter.com/oaxAFJAvSK

His supposed "drug bat" went viral, appearing on the Telegraph, BBC Sport, ESPN, Fox Sports and the Hindustan Times.

The bat also caught the eye of the New Zealand Cricket Museum, who tweeted Neesham: "If that bat’s now as useless as it appears, do you fancy donating it our way? Interesting story to tell our punters!"

@JimmyNeesh If that bat’s now as useless as it appears, do you fancy donating it our way? Interesting story to tell our punters!

But the 23-year-old, who had been travelling through the United States with his Caribbean Premier League team, the Guyana Amazon Warriors, later clarified it was not his bat, but his teammate's, West Indian cricketer Lendl Simmons.

Neesham tweeted: "Pretty happy I managed to dodge that bullet!"

Just to clarify again, the bat belongs to Lendl Simmons. Pretty happy I managed to dodge that bullet!